across and locked, so as to
intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.

Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back stair, which
reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and made a long ramble
through rooms much lower and ruder in finish than the lordly chambers we
had left below. These commanded various views of the beautiful though
neglected grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered suddenly a chamber,
which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle, formed by the inner walls
of this great house, and of course designed only by the architect to afford
the needful light and air to portions of the structure.

I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked out. The
surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked soiled and dark. The
windows lined with dust and dirt, and the window-stones were in places
tufted with moss, and grass, and groundsel. An arched doorway had opened
from the house into this darkened square, but it was soiled and dusty; and
the damp weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped undisturbed against it.
It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little, and I gazed into that
blind and sinister area with a strange thrill and sinking.

'This is the second floor--there is the enclosed court-yard'--I, as it
were, soliloquised.

'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a ghost,' exclaimed
Milly, who came to the window and peeped over my shoulder.

'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'

'What business, Maud?--what a plague are ye thinking on?' demanded Milly,
rather amused.

'It was in one of these rooms--maybe this--yes, it certainly _was_
this--for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall--that Mr. Charke
killed himself.'

I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners the shadows
of night were already gathering.

'Charke!--what about him?--who's Charke?' asked Milly.

'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.

'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself, did he, hanged
himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'

'He cut his throat in one of these rooms--_this_ one, I'm sure--for your
papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to ascertain whether there
was any second door through which a murderer could have come; and you see
these walls are stripped, and bear the marks of the woodwork that has been
removed,' I answered.

'Well, that _was_ awful! I don't kno